If you live on the eastern seaboard of the United States or in certain parts of southern Europe, you can step outside and see a partial eclipse (details here). But if you want to see that glorious moment when the moon completely blocks out the sun, you will need to be looking at a computer screen.

Sunday's eclipse is known as a hybrid eclipse, a fairly rare event.

As the eclipse gets going, the moon will be just a little too far from Earth to completely block the sun. But as the eclipse continues to move east, the distance between Earth and the moon decreases just a bit. By the time the eclipse's path crosses the African continent, the moon will cover the sun entirely and the brightest stars will be visible, even in the daytime.

There's something very cool about watching this eclipse with people around the world, live, as it happens. But if you just can't make yourself do it, Slooh is going to try to put together a time lapse of the eclipse which should be live (and embedded above) a little after 9 a.m. PST.

If "ring of fire" makes you think of something besides the Johnny Cash song, follow me on Twitter for more stories like this.